Editorial: Education — It's about time

Virginia should follow lead of 5 states that are adding hours to school day, year

December 03, 2012

While Virginia continues to wrestle with how to improve lagging performance in public schools, five states have decided to take a bold step: They are expanding the school day and the academic year to add 300 or more hours in 2013-14.

The initiative is the result of collaboration among states, the National Center on Time and Learning and the Ford Foundation. Participating states are Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee.

Among the various school reforms being considered in school districts around the nation, there is strong evidence that increasing tutoring and instructional time have the strongest impact on academic success. Adding instructional time will also help our schools be more competitive with schools in other industrialized nations.

The idea is not just to add "more of the same" to the existing schedule with the hope it will somehow produce better results. More planning periods and study halls aren't the answer. As Ford Foundation President Luis Ubinas characterized it, the goal is to achieve "a total school makeover" by placing greater emphasis on core subjects and providing extra help for students who need it.

Many districts have been reluctant to add time to the school day or school year because of potential friction with teachers' unions — understandably, as this was one of the sticking points in the Chicago teachers' strike earlier this year. That standoff between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the union ended with a much-watered-down package of reforms accompanied by burdensome costs to the district.

But perhaps it doesn't have to be such a battle. An advantage to the model pursued by the five states participating in the extended-year program is that costs of the added instructional time will be borne jointly by local districts, states and the federal government — such as by shifting funds through waivers of the No Child Left Behind requirements. The Ford Foundation's participation confirms that private business can also play a key role in funding the improvements.

Just last week, it was announced that three public elementary schools on the Peninsula — identified as among the lowest performing schools in the commonwealth — will be required to engage state-approved contractors to implement measures targeted at improving performance. According to the Virginia Department of Education, the resulting "turnaround" measures could include replacing the principal and/or staff as well as "changes to the school calendar according to student and program needs, for example, year-round schools or extending the length of the school day."

While these efforts are laudable, Virginia is tip-toeing into the reform process when it could take much larger leaps. In addition to the five states that will adopt the 300-hour increase for 35 schools in 2013-14, more than 1,000 public schools across the U.S. have already added more time to the school day and year. Instead of waiting for another school to fail while students lose precious educational time, these states are being proactive and implementing the most obvious of reforms to give their students a better chance at success.

Unfortunately, the battle for logical improvements such as lengthening instruction time and tying teacher pay to performance has become so rancorous that "school reform" has come to be equated with being "anti-teacher." This became evident in our own General Assembly, as bills for merit pay and flexibility in the school calendar barely sparked before they fizzled and died. Yet if improving the quality of education is truly everyone's goal — and just about every stakeholder will say it is — there has to be a reset of our current system, including a shared approach to accountability.

Instead of wasting valuable legislative time targeted at voters' rights, women's health and pursuing other social agendas that detract from tackling Virginia's core challenges, perhaps our lawmakers have the political will and good sense to use the upcoming session to tackle meaningful education reforms. Among those should be a hard look at the most important strategy in helping our faltering schools: setting aside more hours for learning.